PLDT Inc. partnered with the University of the Philippines Manila Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) to launch a dedicated telemedicine hotline, 155200, for its COVID-19 Bayanihan Operations Center.
This will allow UP PGH to provide assistance to the public and manage the influx of patients to its COVID health care center. The service, in particular, will allow those who are ill to call and consult with professionals regarding their symptoms without having to check in at the hospital.
The hotline is also a channel through which the hospital can accept donations such as those for personal protective equipment and other badly needed supplies.
The hotline service is a joint effort between UP-PGH’s in-house IT team and PLDT’s Enterprise Business Group.
It will operate 24 hours daily and can accommodate 20 simultaneous calls at a time. This will also support the COVID-19 Bayaniihan Operations Center which is also open 24 hours a day. The hotline will be manned by UP PGH volunteers.
UP PGH set up its operations center in line with the direction of the Department of Health to designate key government hospitals as referral facilities to handle COVID-19 patients. The other referral hospitals are the San Lazaro Hospital and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
In his message at the launch of the operations center, PLDT chair and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan thanked the healthcare frontliners for their work in combating the coronavirus disease.
“Allow me to extend our most profound and deeply felt gratitude to all of you for the invaluable and irreplaceable service that you are providing our people and the country,” Pangilinan said.